"The pieces collected here show perceptive and rigorously developed insights into the problems of writing world history." Edwin J. Van Kley, Journal of Asian Studies

• Editor's preface; Introduction: Marshall G. S. Hodgson and world history Edmund Burke, III; Part I. Europe in a global context: 1. The interrelations of societies in history; 2. In the center of the map: nations see themselves as the hub of history; 3. World history and world outlook; 4. The great Western Transmutation; 5. Historical method in civilizational studies; 6. On doing world history; Part II. Islam in a global context: 7. The role of Islam in world history; 8. Cultural patterning in Islamdom and the Occident; 9. The unity of later Islamic history; 10. Modernity and the Islamic heritage; Part III. The discipline of world history: 11. The objectivity of large-scale historical inquiry: its peculiar limits and requirements; 12. Conditions of historical comparison among ages and regions: the limitations of their validity; 13. Interregional studies as integrating the historical disciplines: the practical implications of an interregional orientation for scholars and for the public; Conclusion: Islamic history as world history: Marshall G. S. Hodgson and The Venture of Islam, Edmund Burke, III.